ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the events surrounding the Piper Alpha disaster as an instance of corporate social responsibility failure. It commences with an overview of the regulatory regime that provided the immediate context for the disaster. The chapter shows that this regime was ‘captured’ by the industry that it was supposed to oversee and, as a consequence, provided inadequate protection for the offshore workforce. It analyses oil industry’s response to the disaster. The chapter also shows that this represented an unsuccessful attempt at corporate reputational management, which failed to forestall the groundswell of public concern over the perceived legal immunity of corporations for safety failures. It also examines the contemporary corporate social responsibility movement and suggests that its protagonists have often provided little more than a containment strategy aimed at deflecting more rigorous legislative action against corporate offenders. The oil multinationals are among the most aggressive players in the corporate social responsibility movement.
